Rick Warren - Expand Your Faith & God Will Reveal His Plan for Your Life

If you want God's blessing on your life, you're gonna

have to learn to live by faith. Because everything God

does in you, through you, for you, and to you,

he does because you put your faith in his grace.

God always moves according to your faith. The Bible says

without faith it's impossible to please God. The Bible says

according to your faith it will be done unto you.

The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please God.

It says whatever is not of faith is sin. The

problem is everything in this world focuses against you to

keep you from living by faith. That's why this weekend

in this series, I want us to look at being

faithful in a faithless world. In Luke chapter 18, Jesus

Luke 18 · chapter mention

said this. He said, when I, the son of man, return,

and Jesus is coming back one day, when I, the

son of man, return, how many will I find on

earth who have faith? Why is it so important? Well,

the Bible tells us three things about the importance of faith.

I want you to write these down. Number one, the

Bible tells us that God is looking for faithful people.

God is physically, visibly, actively taking the initiative to look

for faithful people that he can bless. God is looking

for people that he can bless. And what he looks

for is people of faith. Second Chronicles 16, nine says this,

For the eyes of the Lord search back and forth

across the whole world looking for people whose hearts are

perfect toward him so that he can show his great

power in helping them. This has been one of my

life verses. That God is looking for people to use.

And if you get usable, he will wear you out.

If you get blessable, he will bless your socks off.

That's why I don't wear socks. And God says, I

will use you if you will be usable. God is

looking for people, faithful people that he can use. Number two,

the second thing the Bible teaches is that faithful people

are hard to find. They're actually quite rare. People who

trust God with all their heart and soul and mind

and strength are actually quite rare. Faithful people are hard

to find. The Bible says in Proverbs 20, verse six,

Everyone talks about how faithful he is, but it is

difficult to find someone who really is. A lot of

people talk the talk, but they don't really trust God.

They don't really believe God. They're trusting their credit card.

They're trusting everything else. They say they believe in God,

but they don't really trust him when it comes to

their finances, their health, their job, and these other things.

Psalm 53 says this. God looks down from heaven at

the children of man to see if a single one

is wise and seeks God. But he says all of

them have proven faithless. Circle that word, faithless. They've all

proven faithless. They've all been corrupted by the world. And

not one of them always does right. Faithful people are

hard to find. God's looking for people to bless, but

he can't find people who are blessable, who are gonna

live by faith. Now the third thing the Bible says

is this. Faithfulness is the key. to blessing, to victory.

It's the key to victory in your life over all

of the problems in your life, and it's the key

to blessing in your life, just being a faithful man,

a faithful woman. The Bible says this in 1 John

1 John 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5, every child of God can defeat the world. Remember,

we're in this battle called the invisible war, and it

is our faith, circle that, our faith that gives us

the victory. That's how you're gonna overcome your problems. Not

by intelligence, not by money, not by creativity, but it

is by your faith you're going to be able to

overcome difficulties, distress, despair, things like that. Every child of

God can defeat the world and it is our faith

that gives us this victory. No one can defeat the

world without having faith in Jesus as the Son of God.

And the Bible says in Proverbs 28 20, A faithful

man will be richly blessed. I want your life to

be richly blessed. But in order for you to have

that blessing, you're gonna have to learn faithfulness. You're gonna

have to learn how God tests it and you're gonna

have to learn how God grows it. So let's look

this weekend at the six tests of faithfulness and how

God uses these things in your life to grow your

faith so that then he can bless you. Let's get

right into it. Number one, the Bible tells us that

God uses little things to test your integrity. God uses

little things to test your integrity. Now we often think, oh,

it's the big things in life that create a leader. No,

the big crises in life reveal leadership, but leadership is

built not in the big things of life, it's built

in the small things of life. That's where integrity shows up,

in the stuff nobody sees, in the stuff behind the scenes,

in the small, unseen, unspectacular moral choices of life where

you do the right thing and nobody's ever gonna see it.

God tests your integrity in the little things. And faithfulness

requires integrity. Faithful people reveal their integrity in the small,

the unseen, and the unnoticed acts that nobody ever knows about.

Luke 16, verse 10, Jesus says this. Whoever is faithful

Luke 16:10

in small matters will be faithful in large ones. And

who is ever dishonest in small matters will be dishonest

in large ones. Now what is he saying here? He's

saying your public blessing is determined by your private integrity.

Did you hear that? Every time a politician has a scandal,

you can always count on his defenders to come out

and say this. It really shouldn't matter what a guy's

private life is like. Have you ever heard that one?

It really shouldn't matter what a guy does in his

private life. It hasn't had anything to do with him

as a leader. It has everything to do with him

as a leader. Because if a man lies to his wife,

he'll lie to his constituency. Believe me, if he'll lie

to his best friend that he said till death do

us part and be dishonest and he'll reject and cheat

on her, he will cheat on you, voter. Count on it.

Count on it. My public blessing as a leader comes

because of private integrity that nobody ever sees. Your public

blessing as a person comes from your private integrity that

nobody will ever see. God uses little things to test

my integrity. Not only that, notice the next verse. Jesus

says this. And if you have not been faithful with

that which belongs to somebody else, who will give you

what belongs to you? Now he's talking here about the

concept of apprenticeship, that before God gives you something, he

will often loan it to you. He'll often see how

you work in somebody else's. For many centuries, the only

way you learned a job skill is you became an

apprentice in somebody else's job. If you wanted to learn

to be a shoemaker, you apprenticed to a shoemaker who

mentored you. If you wanted to be a mechanic, you

apprenticed to a mechanic and you worked in his mechanic

shop before you got your own. The problem today is

we have many people going out and starting things and

they've never apprenticed under anybody else and they get in

all kinds of trouble. He says, before you get your own,

you need to serve in somebody else. As a pastor,

I believe apprenticed under many other ministries before I was

given my own ministry. I served as a youth pastor

under a guy's ministry in Norwalk. I served as a

Christian teacher in a college under somebody else's ministry. I

served as an associate pastor. I served as a writer

in a Christian organization long before God gave me my

own ministry. He says, if you're not faithful with somebody

else's job, who's gonna give you? Are you as faithful

particular with somebody else loans you something. Somebody loans you

a car. Do you treat it as nicely as you'd

treat your own car? Somebody loans you their home to

go on vacation. Do you treat it as nicely as

you would your own home? You see, I learned a

long time ago this principle. I don't have to own

it to enjoy it, but I can take care of

it even though it's not mine. And so I don't

have to own stuff for people to, you know, this

week a guy, uh, I had to fly over to

Phoenix to speak at a convention. And the guy said, Rick,

why don't you get your own plane? I said, absolutely not.

You will never hear me get my own plane. Now,

if you want to buy one, I'll use yours. I'll

be happy. But I don't have to own it to

enjoy it. He said, but you fly all around the world.

I said, no, no, I'm not gonna buy a plane.

First place, I don't think it's good for pastors to

own that kind of stuff. But I said, I don't

have to own it to enjoy it. If somebody else

wants to provide, you got a plane, fine, I'll use it.

But don't worry about having to own something in order

to enjoy it. God will often entrust you with something

that somebody else's before he gives you your own Number two, second,

very important. God uses my talents to test my unselfishness.

God uses my talents to test my unselfishness. Now you

have to decide in life who or what you're gonna

live for. And you've really got two choices in life.

You're either gonna A, live for yourself, a self-centered, miserly life,

or B, You're gonna live for something greater than yourself,

which I highly suggest. The kingdom of God, live for

Jesus Christ. You're gonna live for yourself or you're gonna

live for something bigger than yourself. Faithful people don't live

for themselves. They realize that the talents God gave them

are not for their own benefit, but to make the

world a better place. Do you realize this? That when

God made you, he gave you all kinds of gifts,

all kinds of talents, all kinds of abilities. We call

it your shape if you've taken class 301. Your spiritual gifts,

your heart, your abilities, your personality, your experiences. These five

things make you you. And God made you you and

there's nobody like you in the whole world and he

wants you to be you for his glory. Now, God

shaped you to serve him. How do you serve God?

There's only one way to serve God, by serving other people.

On this planet, you cannot serve God directly because you

can't see him. So the only way you can serve

God is by serving others. And when you serve others,

you are serving God. And God shaped you to serve him. Now,

faithful people realize that their talents are not for their benefit.

You know those talents you got? I'm sorry, they weren't

given for your sake. You were given the abilities you

got to help other people. One of my gifts, one

of my talents is I have a talent at teaching.

But God gave me the teaching gift not to benefit me,

but to help you. My gift helps you. In the

same way, God has gifted you. And your gift was

meant to help me and to help other people around you. Now,

if I don't use my gifts, my talents, you get cheated.

If you don't use the gifts and talents that God

gave you, I get cheated. Now, you may have a

talent for art and you say, well, why do I

do art? Because I just love to do it. Well,

that's nice, but that's not a good enough motive because

God didn't give you artistic ability just so you can

love to do it. He gave it to you so

you can use your art in some ways to help

other people. Some of you have an ability to fix things.

Some of you are good at mechanics. Some of you

are good at math. Some of you are good at

closing deals. Some of you are good at music. Some

of you are good at organizing. And you can organize

something really quick. And some of you are good at

trimming and gardening. And you know what? God made us

all different so everything in the world gets done. If

we all like to do the same thing, there'd be

a lot left undone. So God made us all like

to do different things. Now, those things that God gave

you are not for your benefit. They are given as

a stewardship. And God is watching you to see if

you use what he gave you effectively on earth. And

if you use it effectively on earth, listen, he's gonna

give you more responsibility in heaven. There's a whole lot

of teaching on this in scripture. Jesus told many parables

about it. that God is studying your faithfulness. Have you

ever thought about, why didn't God just create us and

take us to heaven? Why does he put us here

on a broken planet for 80 years or 90 years

or whatever? He puts you here because life is a

test and life is a trust and life is a

temporary assignment. And he's watching to see if you are

faithful with what he gave you here on earth to

bless other people, he's gonna give you greater rewards, greater

responsibility and greater roles in heaven. This is a test. Now,

the Bible says this, 1 Peter chapter four. Each one

of you should use whatever gift he has received to

make a ton of money. Retire and die. No, no, no.

He says to serve others faithfully, circle that word faithfully,

faithfully administering. You're a manager and you're a manager of

the talent you've been given. Faithfully managing God's grace in

its various forms. God gave you talents and he's watching

to see if you're faithful with them. Now, one of

the principles we know is if you don't use it,

you lose it. Talent is like a muscle. If you

use muscle, it gets stronger. If you don't use your muscle,

you lose your muscle. If you don't use your talent

because of fear or laziness or anything like that, God

will take it away and give it to somebody else.

Whatever you use wisely, God gives you more of. Would

you write that down? Whatever I use wisely, God will

give me more of. If you use your time wisely,

God will give you more time. If you use your

energy wisely, God will give you more energy. If you

use your money wisely, God will give you more money.

I have found that if you use your influence wisely,

God will give you more influence. But if you're faithful

in little, then you'll be faithful in much. So if

I take my talents, if I use my talents wisely,

God will increase my talent. And I'll get better at it.

And I'll get more better at it. And better and

better and better. Because God gives to people who use

what he gives them effectively. Look at the next verse.

Now it is required that those who have been given

a trust must prove what? That's what we're talking about

this weekend. God is watching to see, do I use

my time, my money, my influence? Do I use my intelligence?

Do I use my brain wisely? Then he's gonna give

you more. Whatever I use wisely, God will give me

more of. There are two great themes in the Bible,

two great themes. One is salvation and the other is stewardship.

They're taught from cover to cover. Salvation is, have I

trusted Jesus for my forgiveness? Stewardship is, what are you

doing with what you've been given? And God is looking

at both of these major themes in your life. Number three,

the third test. And if you pass this test, then

God gives you more blessing. And this test will be

on and on. Number three, God uses tough times to

teach me persistence. God uses tough times to teach me persistence.

The difference between faithful people and unfaithful people is unfaithful

people give up at the first sign of difficulty. Faithful

people keep on keeping on. Faithful people are determined. Faithful

people are diligent. Faithful people are persistent. Faithful people don't

know how to quit. Do you know how a little nut,

an acorn becomes an oak tree? An oak tree is

just an acorn that refused to give up. And it

just kept on keeping on. And you just never give up.

I'm not that smart, but I do have one thing,

is I don't know how to quit. It is always

too soon to quit. You are never a failure till

you quit, and it's always too soon to quit. God

uses tough times to test us. my persistence. You know,

when we started Saddleback with just Kay, I preached the

first sermon to one person, my wife. She thought it

was too long. It's been downhill ever since. 31 years later,

she's still saying it's too long. Over the next, I

thought when we started the church, we'd get a building

real quick. We went 15 years without a building In

the first 13 years of this church, we used 79

different facilities. Do you know how many times I felt

like giving up? Just every Monday morning. But I don't

know how to quit. And we said, God said, Rick,

if I never give you a building, will you still

serve me? I said, absolutely. Saddleback grew to over 10,000

people before we built this first building. How would you

like to set up and take down a church for 10,000

people every week? There's not a lot of glory to that.

It's just hard work. God says, I use tough times

to test your persistence. Notice this verse. You're going through

tough times right now. This verse is for you. 2

Corinthians 4. This is why we never give up. Though

our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.

For our present troubles are quite small, and they won't

last very long but they will produce for us an

immeasurably great glory that will last forever because when you're

going through tough times you're growing in character so he

says we don't look at the troubles we can see

right now In other words, we don't keep our eyes

on the problem. Rather, we look forward to what we

have not seen, the reward for persevering. For the troubles

we've seen will soon be over, but the joys to

come will last forever. You see, there's something God is

more interested in than what you do. God is more

interested in who you are than what you do. He's

more interested in what you're becoming than what's happening to you.

And God often allows trials, troubles, tribulations, problems, persistence, you know,

in your life to teach you the diligence, determination, and character.

The problem you're going through right now, this is a test.

It's easy to serve God when things are going great. Now,

if you're going through a tough time right now, and

almost everybody is, the next verse you need to memorize.

So put a star by it. Go home and write

it down on a card and memorize it this week

for encouragement. Galatians 6, 9. Don't get tired of doing

what is right. You will, circle will, not might, you

will be rewarded when the time is right if you

don't give up. I want us to read that verse

aloud together. Read it with me. Don't get tired of

doing what's right. You will be rewarded when the time

is right if you don't give up. You need to

memorize that verse because God uses tough times to test

your persistence. One of my great spiritual lessons I learned

from that theologian, Forrest Gump. Everybody remember the story Forrest Gump?

In Forrest Gump, there's a story of a hard time

that they go through which a hurricane, tsunami, comes into

the south part of America, okay? And all of the fishing, remember,

Forrest Gump has a fishing boat, Bubba Gump Shrimp, okay?

He's got a fishing boat. And all of the other

fishing boats say, we got a storm coming in, so

we're gonna play it safe. We're not gonna be out

fishing during the storm. We're gonna pull into the harbor.

We're gonna batten down the hatches. We're gonna tie up

next to shore and we're gonna wait out this recession,

this storm. Economic tough times are coming. We got a

storm coming in. It's a parable. And so we're gonna

tie up and we're gonna play it safe. We're not

gonna be out fishing. We're gonna wait it out the storm.

We're gonna play it conservative. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Only

one fishing boat is doing what fishing boats are made

to do, fish. And so Forrest Gump is out on

the ocean fishing in the middle of the storm. If

you remember this story, at the end of the storm,

every boat that had tied down in the harbor was destroyed.

They had all been dashed against the rocks. They were

completely dominated and broken up and they were all destroyed.

And after the storm, Forrest Gump dominated the market because

he was the only one who didn't play it safe.

Number four. The fourth thing that you need to understand

is that God uses shortages to test my generosity. God

uses shortages to test my My generosity. Faithful people are

generous when they don't have it to give. Now follow

me on this. Anybody can be generous when you got

a surplus. I can be generous with my time when

I got a lot of extra time. I can be

generous with my money when I got a lot of

extra money. I can be generous with my energy when

I got extra energy to spend. I can be generous

with help when I've got a lot of extra help

to give. It's when I don't have enough for me.

I don't have enough time for me. I don't have

enough energy for me. I don't have enough money for me.

I don't have enough talent for me. And I give

it away to help others. God goes, this is a test.

And I'm watching you to see if you are faithful.

will you be faithful and will you trust me? Now,

a great example of this in the Bible is the

story of the church in Macedonia. Macedonia was an area

of Greece. Alexander the Great, he was from Macedonia. His

father was Philip of Macedonia. Now there's a church in

this place called Macedonia in Greece and there's another church

in Greece called the Corinthians. Corinth is a city in Greece.

And Paul writes a letter to the church at Corinth

and he's bragging on the church at Macedonia for them

being generous in the middle of their shortages. Here's what

he says, look up here on the screen. He says,

those people over there in Macedonia, they're going through this

enormous recession. He goes, they have been going through severe trouble.

They've been going through very hard times. And out of

their extreme poverty, these people are flat broke, has flowed

extreme generosity and overwhelming joy. What's he talking about? He

said those people over there, they are hurting like crazy.

But they gave a huge offering to help the church

down in Jerusalem that's starving right now. He goes out

of their poverty came generosity. He said God's watching that.

They are being faithful. They are being faithful. Did you

know that the number one test, the acid test of

your faith in your life is your finances? Not anything else,

but it's your finances. Why? Because we spend most of

our time thinking, making, worrying, investing, saving money. It's the

acid test of how much do I trust God, my finances.

In fact, Jesus said it like this. I tell you,

use worldly wealth, your worldly resources, that's your time, your money,

your energy, everything, use your worldly resources to benefit others

and to make friends for eternity. In other words, to

help get people into heaven, finance missions. In this way,

your generosity stores up a reward for you in heaven.

He said, when you help other people with whatever you've got,

you're storing up a reward for you in heaven. But

if you are unfaithful, there's that word, if you're unfaithful

with your worldly wealth, you just spend it all on yourself,

who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?

You cannot serve both God and money. He said, if

I can't trust you with material wealth in this world,

I'm not gonna trust you with the true riches of

heaven in eternity. This is a test. Let me give

you five principles right now. I want you to write

these down. To make it through tough times. These are

five principles that if you will do these things, God

will bless you in your life in these areas, okay?

Number one, first principle in a recession. God gives to

generous people. God gives generously. to generous people. This is

a principle in the Bible. God says, the more generous

you are, the more generous I'm gonna be with you.

If you're generous with your time, I'm gonna give you

more time. If you're generous with your energy, I'm gonna

give you more energy. If you're generous with your talent,

I'm gonna give you more talent. God says, why does

God want me to be generous? Obviously, he doesn't need it.

He wants me to be like him. Everything I have

in my life, everything you have in your life is

because of the generosity of God. Your heart is beating

because of the generosity of God. The blood in your

veins and the air you breathe is all there because

of the generosity of God. God so loved that he gave.

And God wants us to grow up and be like him.

Like father, like son, like father, like daughter. God wants

me to learn to be generous. And so he rewards it.

And there's a principle throughout the Bible where God says,

the more generous you are, the more generous I will

be with you. You cannot out-give God. I have played

this game for many years. Most of you know my story.

Kay and I started tithing when we were married 36

years ago. And each year raised our tithe from 10%,

at least 1% a year, to 11%, to 12%, to 13,

to 15. Sometimes on big years, I'd get a raise,

I'd raise it 3 or 4%. It was really tight.

We were barely making ends meet. We'd raise it just

a quarter percent. Why? We didn't tell, we weren't trying

to show off. I didn't tell anybody about this for

30 years. But I wanted my heart to grow bigger.

And every year I wanted to be more like Jesus.

So I was trying to learn generosity. Most of you

know that today Kay and I give away 91% of

our income and live on 9%. Most of you know

I don't take a salary from this church. I've served

this church free for 31 years. And it's been fun

learning to give it away. And I've played this game

where God says, Rick, you give to me and I'll

give to you and we'll see who wins. And I

have lost that game for 36 years. Now, God gives

to generous people. And the more I give, the more

God blesses me. Number two, this is a real important one.

Obeying God's vision will bring God's provision. obeying God's vision

will bring God's provision. In other words, if you do

what God tells you to do and you don't have

the money, you don't have the energy, you don't have

the people, you don't have it, God will bring it along,

the resources you need at the right time because what

he calls you to do, he's gonna fulfill. What he's

given you the vision for, he will give you the

provision for. He'll give you the provision for. And so

what you need to do is you step out in

faith to do what you know God's called you to do.

Here's the third principle. This is a real important one.

When I do all God tells me to do, he

does what I can't do. When I do all God

tells me to do, he does what I can't do.

Now this story of the feeding of the 5,000 in

the Bible is a perfect example of this. Do you

remember this story? The miracle of Jesus feeding 5,000 people?

They're all out in the desert. Jesus has been teaching

all day. It's the end of the day and everybody's hungry.

There's no McDonald's anywhere. So the disciples come to Jesus

and said, send them all away Lord so they can

go home and eat. Jesus looks at the disciples and

he says, you feed them. Now That was impossible. Here,

God often asks you to do the impossible to stretch

your faith. He looks at them and says, you feed them.

They say, Lord, we can't. We don't have any money.

We don't have any food. There's no place to buy food.

We can't. Jesus said, you feed them. So then he says,

anybody got a lunch? And out of that entire 5,000 people,

one little kid has a little sack lunch. And in

that little sack lunch are five little tiny rolls of

bread and two little fish, like sardines. And the little

kid takes his measly little lunch, and he gives it

to Jesus. He gives Jesus everything he's got. It's not much,

but he gives it to him. Jesus takes it, he

breaks it, he blesses it, and he multiplies it, and

he feeds 5,000 people with it. And then at the

end of their off eating, they gather 12 baskets of leftover.

There was so much leftover. What's the principle there? When

I give what little I've got, God multiplies it and

he makes up for it. Fourth principle, very important. When

I have a need, I sow a seed. When I

have a need, I sow a seed. Now here's the point.

Whatever you need more of, give it away. If you

need more energy, give energy to helping other people and

God will give you more energy. If you need more time,

give some of your time away unselfishly and God will

give you more time. If you need more intelligence, you

give whatever you got away to help others. If you

need more money, whatever you need, you sow a seed.

Can you imagine a farmer going, well, it's recession. I

think I'll just keep all the seed in the barn. No,

you got to plant it in order to profit from it. Now,

whatever you need in your life, you sow that as

a seed and it will be responsible to come back

to you. Here's the fifth principle, very important. There's always

a delay between sowing and reaping. There is always a

delay between sowing and reaping. In other words, if I

go out and I plant a kernel of corn in

the ground, tomorrow I'm not gonna see a full grown

stock of corn with 20 ears on it. Ain't gonna happen.

There is a season between planting and harvesting, between the

seed and the fruit. There is always a time delay

and what's going on in the time delay? This is

a test. It's a test of your faith. Will I

be faithful? Will I keep on doing the right thing?

Will I do what God wants me to do and

see what God does? There's two other ways that God

tests your faithfulness. And when you pass these tests, he

pours out blessing on your life. Here they are, number five.

Faithful people bring friends to Jesus. God is watching you.

And faithful people, faithful people share their faith. Faithful people

share their faith. Faithful people bring others into the faith.

If I don't share my faith, I am being unfaithful. Now,

a good example of this is these four guys in

the Bible had a friend who was paralyzed, and they

had the faith to think, you know, if we could

just get our friend to Jesus, Jesus would heal the guy,

and then our friend would be well. And they had

faith that if they could get their friend to Jesus,

he'd be healed. The story is told here in Galatians,

They're on your outline in Matthew chapter nine. It says,

some men brought to Jesus a paralytic, a paralyzed man,

a paralyzed friend, lying on a mat. He couldn't even

get to Jesus. He was paralyzed. When Jesus saw their faith,

circle the phrase their faith. When Jesus saw their faith,

he said to the paralyzed man, take heart, son. Your

sins are forgiven. I didn't print the rest of the verse.

The rest of the verse says, And he said, take

up your mat and go home. And the guy was

instantly healed. Now, Jesus heals the guy. Now, according to

that verse, did Jesus heal the guy because of the

sick man's faith or because of the friend's faith? What? Yeah,

the friend's. It says, when Jesus saw their faith, you

guys had enough faith that if you could get your

paralyzed man to me, I'd save him. On the basis

of their faith, not the guy who was sick, but

their faith, He healed the man. Now listen very closely.

You have friends that are paralyzed and can't get to Jesus.

You have friends who are paralyzed by guilt and they

can't get to Jesus. They're paralyzed by doubt and they

can't get to Jesus. They're paralyzed by fear. They're paralyzed

by worry. They're paralyzed by insecurity and they can't get

to Jesus. And the only way they're gonna get to

Jesus is you're gonna have to bring them And if

you have enough faith to bring them to Jesus, they

will get saved. But they're not gonna get saved, they're

not gonna be healed, their life isn't gonna be turned

around until you have enough faith to bring them to Jesus.

Now when God looks out and he sees people bringing

people to him, he not only heals those people, he

blesses the person who brought them. If you want the

blessing of God on your business, if you want the

blessing of God on your family, If you want the

blessing of God on your life, just start bringing friends

to Jesus. And if you bring your friends to Jesus,

God says, that's the kind of person I'm looking for.

They are faithful. And God blesses faithfulness. You want God's

blessing on any area of your life? Just start bringing

your friends to Jesus. And you watch what happens. God

will do things in your life, your finances, your health,

your business, you could not imagine Faithful people bring friends

to Jesus, which is why we don't ever stop reaching out.

We keep starting campuses. We keep starting churches. We keep

doing outreaches to bring more friends to Jesus. Why? The

moment this church stops bringing people to Jesus, the hand

of blessing is taken off of it. God is blessing

this church because there are people in it who are

still bringing their friends to Jesus, and they're getting blessed

from it. One last principle. Number five, or six, faithful

people build the faith of others. Faithful people build the

faith of others. And when God sees your faithfulness, he

blesses you. Now building the faith of others is called

mentoring or discipling. It's simply encouraging somebody in the faith

who's younger in the faith than you. Everybody in life

needs a Paul and everybody needs a Timothy. What's a Paul?

That's somebody who's older than you who can kind of

encourage you and encourage you and be a coach to

you spiritually and just be there to pray for you.

Everybody needs a Paul, and everybody needs a Timothy. That's

somebody who's not been a Christian as long as you.

Maybe you've only been a Christian one week longer, but

they can be your Timothy. And you need to be

mentoring somebody younger than you. Now, you don't need to

be a hundred steps ahead of that person because they

can't see you. You only need to be one step ahead.

And if you start helping other people in their faith,

you're going to find God blessing your socks off. Faithful

people build the faith of others. God has called every

Christian to do this. Notice this verse, 2 Timothy chapter two,

verse two. The things, Paul is talking to Timothy. Paul says,

the things you've learned from me, Timothy, in the presence

of many witnesses, you are to entrust to other faithful people,

there's that word faithful, who will also be qualified to

pass it on to others. Now notice, in that verse,

there are four generations. Paul says, I helped build up

your faith Now you're to find somebody who's faithful and

help build up their faith, who they will turn around

and build up the faith of others. Four generations in

one verse. Four generations. This is called mentoring. It's called discipling.

Don't you wish when you were in your 20s and

you're a young guy, if you had had an older

guy who was a Christian who said, you know what,

I don't know a whole lot, but let's just get

together for coffee once a month and we'll just talk

and I'll pray for you. and you need some help

in your business, I don't know a whole lot, but

I can tell you what I know. You need some

help in your family, your marriage, I can tell you

what not to do. I can tell you what not

to do. That's mentoring. See, it's wise to learn from experience.

It's wise to learn from experiences and mistakes of others.

I don't have time to learn it all myself. And

let's say if you're a young woman, wouldn't you like

to have an older woman, a godly woman, who takes

you under her wing and says, look, I know you

got problems with your kids, problems with your husband, or

problems with your career, or problems with this, going to school.

I tell you what, I'll just be there to hang

on with you. I'll be there to pray with you.

I don't know a whole lot, but I'll just be

there for you. Wouldn't you have wanted that as a

young Christian? Of course you would have. Of course you

would have. Here's what Jesus said to Peter, Luke 22.

This is before Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus knew

he was gonna do it, and he said this. Peter. Peter.

Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I've

prayed for you that your faith will not completely fail.

He said, Peter, I already know you're going to fail,

but I've already prayed for you and I know you're

going to come out of it. So after you've repented

and come back to me, after you've blown it and

you've come back to me, strengthen and build up the

faith of your brothers. In other words, say, be a mentor.

What I want you to be able to do is

you to take your biggest problems and failures and save

somebody else from making the same mistake. And you'll be

able to say like Job, look up here on the screen.

This is what a mentor does. You'll sing God's praises

to everyone you meet, testifying. Here's what you'll say. I

messed up my life. I messed up my life and

let me tell you, it wasn't worth it. But God

stepped in and saved me and I'm alive again. That's

called mentoring. I messed up my life. Let me tell you,

it wasn't worth it. But God stepped in and saved me.

He'll help you too. So hang in there. God is

going to use you as a mentor. Let's bow our heads.

I want you to follow me in this prayer after

I pray for you. Lord, I know, Father, you're looking

for faithful people to use. You're looking for faithful people

to bless. I know the people of real faith are

hard to find. And yet you have said faithfulness is

the key to blessing. It is the key to victory.

And that a faithful man, a faithful woman will be

richly blessed. I want these people in our family to

be richly blessed. So help us to respond to the

sixth test of faith with the way that we ought

to respond. Now you pray. In your heart, in your mind,

say this. Dear God, please use the little things in

my life to grow my integrity, the stuff that nobody sees.

Help me to be faithful in that which isn't my

own so that you can give me my own. And God,

Use my talents to grow my unselfishness. Help me to

realize that my giftedness, my abilities were not made for

my benefit but to make the world a better place

and to help others. Lord, the tough times I'm going through,

I'm gonna ask you to use them to grow my persistence.

Help me to not give up. Help me to keep

on keeping on. Help me to not look at the

problem but the reward in heaven for growing in character

And you know, Lord, the stuff that I lack, that

I've got a shortage on in my life, I'm gonna

ask you to help me to grow in generosity through

the shortages of my life, to be generous when I

can't afford it with my time, with my praise. Help

me to be generous in affirming others, to be generous

with my money, Help me to be generous with my love.

Help me to be generous not with criticism but with praise.

I wanna learn to be generous in every area. I

wanna obey your vision and expect your provision. I wanna

do what you tell me to do and then watch

you make up the difference. I wanna be generous so

that you can be generous to me so I can

be more generous. where I have a need, help me

plant a seed. And when there's a delay between the

seed and the harvest, help me to realize you are still,

you're still testing my faith. Lord, I want your blessing

on my family, on my business, on my life. Help

me to faithfully bring other friends to the faith. to

bring my friends to Jesus who are paralyzed and don't

have enough faith on their own to come to you.

And help me to build the faith of others. It

scares me to death, but I'm willing to be a mentor.

I ask you to help me be a faithful person

so that you can bless me in your name. If

you've never invited Jesus Christ in your life, say, Jesus Christ,

Come into my life right now. I want to put

my faith in you. Amen.